ABC staff did a deal with Juanita Nielsen ‘informant’

The ABC had many dealings with lawyer John Innes before airing his problematic claims that he knew exactly who killed Juanita Nielsen and where she killed.

ABC staff had many dealings with retired lawyer John Innes before airing his problematic allegations in the now dumped miniseries into the 1975 disappearance of journalist Juanita Nielsen.

Pinned as the key witness in the ABC’s troubled two-part miniseries, Juanita: A Family Mystery, Innes had extensive involvement with both the taxpayer-funded broadcaster and production company WildBear Entertainment, before the series was aired in September.

Both TV episodes, which examined details around Nielsen’s death, were stripped from the ABC’s streaming platform iview after new information emerged that discredited some of the bombshell claims made by Innes in the program.

But in a letter written by Innes to his family and friends and seen by The Australian before the program was aired, he claims, “ABC crime journalists and researchers tracked me down as a key witness for the series”.

He goes on in the letter to say, “now after two months of ABC fact checking, the series is about to go to air”.

“I know exactly who killed Juanita, where she was killed, how much they paid to kill her, how the murderer was paid and how they moved the body - the only question I don’t know (and have since regretted not asking at the time) is where the body was dumped or buried,” Innes wrote.

The ABC confirmed they did deal with Innes in the lead up to the problematic series airing.

“WildBear and the ABC had dealings with Innes, as you might expect for an interviewee,” an

ABC spokesman said.

Nielsen was the founder of alternative newspaper NOW, and was last seen alive on July 4, 1975 at the Carousel Club in Sydney’s Kings Cross, which was owned by underworld figure Abe Saffron.

Claims: John Innes. Picture: ABC

In the series Innes claimed he was placed in Long Bay Gaol as part of an undercover operation to try and extract information from Eddie Trigg – an associate of Saffron.

But the claims by Innes proved problematic, forcing the ABC to remove the series and also dump two podcasts after issues arose around the legitimacy of Innes’ claims.

Reports on the weekend also emerged that Innes demanded the program makers refrain from asking him crucial questions about his criminal record during the miniseries, which they abided by.

This meant he was not to be asked about his criminal history that would have resulted in scrutiny of his claims and puts serious doubt on them.

At the 1983 inquest into Nielsen’s death, Innes told the court he was charged with false pretences - passing dud cheques - in late 1982 and given bail.

He was also subsequently charged with giving false information in relation to obtain a passport and was refused bail and jailed for three months.

Author Peter Rees, who has followed the cold case for 46 years said he was “stunned that such terms had been negotiated” and agreed to by ABC and WildBear Entertainment.

“His (Innes’) criminal history at the time of the inquest in 1983 was read into the court records,” he said.

“That should have never been agreed to, you have to know the credibility of the person you are putting up as a star witness who is allegedly breaking new ground.

“We need to know their antecedence so we can judge their credibility.”

The ABC said “release agreements are standard industry practice.

Despite this they noted, “the exclusions in the agreement between WildBear Entertainment and John Innes are highly unusual and are not ones that the ABC nor WildBear would accept again”.

Outgoing ABC news director Gaven Morris was interviewed on ABC Melbourne radio last week and said the Juanita Nielsen miniseries failures did not fall under the news division.

“That wasn’t a news one and I don’t know a lot about it,” he said.

The ABC confirmed the Nielsen and podcast series came out of the ABC Factual and Culture team - this division is led by Jennifer Collins.

The team is within the ABC’s Entertainment and Specialist division which is headed up by Michael Carrington.

Innes was contacted by The Australian but he did not respond.